


Get A Clue

by wildlives



Category: The Nice Guys (2016)
Genre: Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Organized Crime, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13052580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildlives/pseuds/wildlives
Summary: It was so weird to see Jack startled; normally there had to be a gun involved, or Holly talking about getting a boyfriend. March said, louder, “We absolutely believe in reincarnation, sir. It’s one of our passions, as private detectives.”





	Get A Clue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bitnotgood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitnotgood/gifts).



March had been dubious, to say the least, when Holly said she had a job for them involving a movie star; they paid well but their cases usually involved a lot of guns and cameras. Christopher Martindale was definitely March’s kind of client though. He was 95 years old, a millionaire, and hadn’t had a starring role since the early 30’s. No paparazzi were going to catch March puking in the bushes this time.

“So, to recap,” said March, running his pen down the side of the page, “your brother’s name is Frederick, he moved to Tennessee 68 years ago, and you haven’t talked to him since.”

“That’s right,” said Martindale. He was skinny, with a full head of white hair, and was tucked into a wheelchair with several blankets. 

“And why did you say you stopped talking?” asked Jack. 

“Because I’m a homosexual,” said the old man.

“Sure, sure,” said March, poker-faced, and wrote that down.

Maybe not poker-faced enough. Jack was giving him a look. “And your brother, he, he’s not a homosexual?” March added solicitously, in case that helped. It didn’t. Jack’s frown had darkened.

“No, not at all,” said the old man.

Jack interjected. “Mr. Martindale, why don’t you tell us about some of your brother’s daily habits.” 

March took increasingly scribbly notes while the guy described everything he ever remembered his brother doing. They’d grown up in a one-bedroom apartment and Frederick had even worked for him as his assistant while Christopher was a superstar, so there was a lot to write down. The old guy’s housekeeper brought them tea and cookies while he talked.

When March’s hand got sore, he said, “Thank you, sir, that’s very comprehensive.”

Jack patted the client’s arm, the suckup. “We can do a lot with this information. We’ll call you in two days with our first update.”

Martindale beamed. Despite his age and _extreme_ wrinkliness, March could still see the charm that had stolen the hearts of ladies everywhere. The guy had _great_ cheekbones. “I knew I was right in choosing you,” Martindale gushed. “Ever since I saw your picture in the paper.”

Jack smiled and said, “Thanks, Mr. Martindale. good to know the ads are working.”

“No, no,” said Martindale. “Not those horrible drawings. They look nothing like you.” March huffed quietly to himself; he had paid good money for those ads. “You were photographed after your case last year with the auto show. And I noticed that you-” Martindale pointed to Jack, “-you look just like my late partner. Do you believe in reincarnation?”

Silence followed. 

“This is hilarious,” March murmured reverently. 

Jack was apparently too alarmed to glare at him for that. It was so weird to see Jack startled; normally there had to be a gun involved, or Holly talking about getting a boyfriend. March said, louder, “We absolutely believe in reincarnation, sir. It’s one of our passions, as private detectives.”

Christopher chuckled. “You don’t have to lie, my boy; you already have my first payment. But come, come see what I mean. I think you’ll be convinced.” He turned his wheelchair around and rolled toward the double doors at the back of the room.

The doors opened into a large den with velvet couches and a fireplace, and over the fireplace was a huge painting of Jack. Jack thirty years younger and - March squinted - maybe with a bit of a unibrow, but the likeness was undeniable.

“Shit,” said March.

“Huh,” said Jack.

The portrait looked kind of old. “When did you say your partner passed?” March asked. 

“1923,” said Christopher.

“What year were you born?” March said accusingly to Jack.

“1923,” said Jack, staring blankly at the painting. Then March saw Jack’s instincts took over: he stuck out a hand to Martindale, who shook it, smiling. Jack recited politely, “Looking forward to working with you/we’ll call soon/don’t forget our card,” pumping the guy’s hand, and then he and March were back out on the sidewalk, the front door booming shut behind them, and March could finally laugh properly without offending the rich, rich client.

The laughter apparently snapped Jack out of shock and back into irritation. “Reincarnation isn’t real, Holland,” he grumbled, stalking down the sidewalk to the car. “Coincidences like that happen all the time.”

March followed him, gesticulating. “I know that, but that painting _was you,”_ he said. “God, I can’t wait to tell Holly.”

-

“And then he showed us a huge painting of his boyfriend, and it looked exactly like Jack.” March pointed to Jack’s face, then framed it in the air with his hands, to illustrate. Jack glared. “No, not quite like that. He looked happier,” said March.

Jack wasn’t joking, though; he looked really annoyed. He took his full plate of spaghetti to the living room to sulk.

“What?” March called after him.

Holly was watching from across the kitchen counter, her eyes flicking back and forth between them. “I can’t believe you guys still haven’t talked about this,” she said flatly.

“Talked about what? Jack’s past life as a boytoy?” said March, loudly, in case Jack wanted to snipe back. He did not. The man was an enigma.

Holly stared at him, then shook her head and said, “Anyway, as I was trying to say, I think _my_ new case is going well. I traced the payments my client’s bully has been getting back to a Marco Andretti. I think he’s been a mule for the Andretti family all year! I just have to get some evidence and the cops can do the rest.” She twirled pasta on her fork, looking smug.

“Andretti?” said March, finally getting it. 

“Yeah, _Marco_ Andretti,” said Holly. “Not one of the major players. He’s like, a second cousin of the real mobsters. Don’t worry, Dad.”

_“Andretti?”_ said Jack from the couch; finally done sulking, apparently.

Then Jack’s car in the driveway exploded. And when March pulled Holly behind the couch, the back kitchen window exploded, peppering them both with glass, and then Jack had to pull them both out the side door and across the neighbor’s yard because March might have been screaming too much to help.

-

The cops let them pick their way back into the house after only a few hours of sirens and interrogations. According to them, the damage to the structure was superficial. 

The questions had been about whether they had any enemies, who they might be, bullshit like that, and first of all, that list was too long to bother giving them, and secondly, Holly had stepped on the Andrettis’ tail and if they told the cops that, they’d all probably end up dead. They also didn’t tell them that Jack had seen masked guys run in to the house and ransack it while it was still smoldering. 

Jack sifted through stuff that had fallen out of the bookcase by the door. March was sweeping up the glass from the front window, thinking of how the charred walls and Holly’s coughing reminded March too much of the fire that killed his wife. 

“Okay, so what did they take?” said Jack. 

“My notebook!” shouted Holly from her bedroom. 

“On the case?” called Jack.

“No, of course not! I keep those in a panel in the wall,” said Holly. She emerged, holding up her case notes. “They took my schoolwork! Mrs. Gibson is going to kill. Me.”

“I’ll write you a note, sweetie,” said March.

“Mrs. Gibson doesn’t accept notes from you anymore and you know it,” shouted Holly. 

With a sudden thought, March put aside the broom and went through the pockets of his coat. It was still lying over the couch where he’d flung it when they came home, now peppered full of debris and glass cuts, but he knew what he would find: nothing. “They took the cash from Martindale,” he said. “And all my notes about his brother. Goddamn them.”

Jack was combing over the kitchen now, and he said, “Look.” The thieves had turned over the pasta pot and into the pool of red they’d dropped a Nice Guys flier. Their sloppily drawn faces looked like they were stained in blood. Apparently the cops had thought that was just how they decorated around here, or something, but it was obviously a message.

“Weirdos,” said March. He took a breath. “Look, I know you’re going to say we should be cautious since it’s the mob or whatever. But they took my money and Holly’s school notes and I really-”

“Oh, we’re getting it back,” said Jack. “All of it.”

“We are? Oh,” said March.

“I have a history with these guys. I know where they have the least protection.”

“You do?” said March.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me yet, Holland,” said Jack, inexplicably.

“Is there? I spent 36 hours trapped in a warehouse with you,” said March. “You sleep on my couch half the time. I do your laundry. When it’s my turn.”

“You do not, and we’re going to talk about that later,” said Jack. That sounded much more like himself.

-

The Andrettis ran drugs out of a roller rink in Pasadena and the place was owned by Jack’s ex-wife’s ex-boyfriend. 

“That explains a few things . . . but not everything,” said March. 

They had pulled up to the closed florist down the street in a rented van. Jack didn’t have a comeback for March, but maybe that was because Holly was with them this time. She was in the driver’s seat while Jack and March crouched in the back. Jack was busy explaining to her: “If we’re not out of there in twenty minutes, call the cops. If you hear gunshots, call the cops. And if you see anybody with a gun leave the building, drive to the gas station we talked about and wait there.”

“I know, I know,” said Holly, nodding along, but with less venom than she sometimes directed at March. She really liked Jack, and March was glad. It was good for her to have someone else to talk to about cases and stuff.

“We’ll be right back, sweetie,” said March, and kissed Holly’s head. She made a face, kissed his cheek, and started rummaging in her soot-streaked backpack.

“Honey, what’s that?” asked March.

She hauled out a phone book and flopped it open in her lap. “While I wait, I’m going to do research for your case,” she said, like it was obvious.

“With that? How did you get a Chattanooga phone book?” asked March.

She looked appalled. “Dad! From my child support case last spring.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “The one with the pizza parlor,” he reminded March. 

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” said March. “Pizza parlor guy, I remember.” Jack tugged on his sleeve and March slid out the back door of the van, still whispering to Holly, “I didn’t forget your case, I just forgot it was about child support, okay?”

Under Jack’s direction, they climbed up the ladder on the side of the florist’s, jumped across to the roof of the roller rink, opened a hatch that had a rusted-off lock plate, and tiptoed down into an attic space with a truly disgusting amount of cobwebs. There were boxes of broken skates and, for some reason, plastic mannequins of skating children. If these guys hadn’t literally just blown up March’s house he would have climbed right back out of there.

“Now we wait,” whispered Jack. “They’ll have left the shit they stole in the office downstairs. We can see into it through that vent.” He pointed toward a little rectangle of light on the floor among the mannequins. “They can’t hear us up here because the rink is too loud. We just wait until it’s clear, lower the ladder, and grab it.”

“Great,” said March, and cringed as he crouched between the mannequins. The slatted vent made it hard to see, but there was a big goon sitting at the desk in the office. He was flipping through Holly’s notebook impatiently, probably looking for case notes. Asshole. March hoped he liked Social Studies.

Jack knelt down next to March and said quietly, “It’s fine for Martindale to have had a boyfriend.”

Non sequitur. “Of course it is,” said March. “But . . . His boyfriend looks just like you. His gay boyfriend. Isn’t that a little funny? And weird?”

“Reincarnation isn’t real,” said Jack patiently. “And no. It’s not weird to me.”

He said that really significantly. March looked at him for a second, gauging, and said, “Because-”

“Because I fuck men,” said Jack. 

March was speechless, which almost never happened. He looked down into the vent to give himself time to think. Now there was another guy in the office and they were arguing. March finally said, “You were _married_. For like 15 years.”

“I like women too,” said Jack. March looked at him; he was giving the patient face like he was talking to a dumb, dumb client. 

“See, I don’t get that,” said March, sitting up. He almost bumped one of the mannequins but put a hand on its cobwebby knee in time to steady it. “I mean, every guy looks at guys sometimes. But unless they’re really, _really_ gay, they don’t go for it. So what do you mean? You gave up on women because your wife fucked your dad? Sorry,” he added quickly. That was usually a pretty sore subject. But Jack was just looking at him like he was waiting for March to get it. March didn’t get it. He didn’t get anything.

“Not everybody looks at guys,” said Jack.

“What do you mean? Of course they do. It’s human nature,” said March. He pointed at Jack. “And how would you know? You know somebody that only ever looks at women?”

“Yes. Every straight guy,” Jack enunciated. “They’re not just ‘not talking about it,’ March. That’s what it’s like being straight. Or so I hear.”

This was very, very complicated. If true, this meant March had to reevaluate the sexualities of everyone he knew. He leaned back on one arm to consider this, knocked over a mannequin for real, and while he was scrambling to control the dominoing of the other mannequins, the trapdoor to the office slammed open and a guy with a gun popped up.

“Oh, shit!” yelled March. He threw his hands up without being told.

“We _can_ hear you, you know,” snapped the Andretti goon. “Great job, geniuses.” He hoisted himself up and was followed by the big guy, with an even bigger gun, and he was grinning.

“And your boyfriend’s right,” said the second guy. “Straight guys only look at girls.”

And honestly, the rest of the night got lost in the concussion March got later.

-

March woke up about five hundred times in the hospital and each time only formed about half a thought before going back under. So it took him three whole days to figure out that Holly was okay, that Jack was taking care of her, and that March definitely wasn’t straight if _that_ was how people decided these things.

He woke up again and found Holly sitting in a chair by his bed, writing in a binder. “Holly, I’m not straight,” he said. His mouth felt dry and terrible.

“Dad,” said Holly. She didn’t look nearly as happy as she should, considering he was back from the dead. “You already told me that eight times.”

“Oh really?” said March, feeling combative. His head was full of fog and his leg was in a cast, but he didn’t have to take this disrespect. “And were you surprised the first time?”

“No, because I’m a detective,” said Holly. 

She passed him a cup of water when he asked and gave him an inventory of his injuries: broken femur, twisted ankle, and a slight concussion. The sleepiness was from painkillers and not brain damage, apparently. And Jack was fine, since _he_ hadn’t fallen through the trapdoor. 

March really wanted to talk to Jack, but when he woke back up and Jack was there, reading a book with his little reading glasses, March didn’t know what to say. He finally skipped all the serious stuff to focus on the mobsters. “How did we get out of there?” he said hoarsely, making Jack jump.

Jack got up and started fussing over him, pushing cups of water and Jell-o into his hands.

“Holly called the cops because she heard one guy shoot a mannequin,” said Jack. “They couldn’t see well in the dark at first. And while the cops were coming, you took them both out by knocking them back down the trapdoor. And then falling on them.”

“I did?” said March, with a burst of pride. “That makes me feel much better about being the only one in the hospital.”

“It should,” said Jack, with a warm, fond look.

Jack was leaning over March’s bed and fidgeting with the corner of the blanket. March stared up at his face and felt like he was falling down a hole all over again. 

“I might not be straight,” said March. Jack smiled. He looked really handsome. “Did I tell you that eight times already?”

“Just once,” said Jack. “And you told Christopher Martindale when he called about his case.”

“What? Oh, no,” said March. Jack laughed and sat on the bed, watching March clutch his face. “Nooooo, I didn’t.”

“He was charmed,” said Jack, beaming. “He said he’d hire us again if he ever needed us. And he was so happy Holly found his brother that he gave us a bonus. Two thousand. We can put it straight into repairing your house.”

March never used to see Jack that happy when he was sober, but March realized they’d all been a lot happier lately, broken legs notwithstanding. And Jack had been more or less living at their place since his landlord hadn’t fixed all the bullet holes in his old apartment yet.

“Maybe we can put it toward rebuilding the old house, the first house, across the street,” said March. “With some extra space. If you’re interested.”

Jack smiled even more. March couldn’t help himself; he reached up, pulled Jack’s head down, and kissed him. Well, he tried to. It turned out pretty messy. In fact, it was terrible. And it was the best kiss March had had in years.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to include a bunch of elements you asked for! I hope you enjoy this story and have a merry Yuletide!


End file.
